"Things Went Very Fast From the Beginning With This Band. We Had Been Working For Ten Years in Different Bands to Get Something Going."

In their former bands, this Swedish collective, Darkane, was plagued with a classic case of hardluckitis, but in their current incarnation the band has quickly blossomed into a successful five piece known as Darkane. Unlike their fellow countrymen, this band adds an extra element to the Gothenburg Sound, as their melo-death sound is enhanced with a technical flair. This collective of accomplished musicians have some deep roots in the Industry considering their past and present affiliations with other well-known bands. Peter Wildoer used to drum for Arch Enemy and is currently the vocalist for the side project Non-Human Level with guitarist Christofer Malmström. Other guitarist Klas Ideberg is currently in Terror 2000 and The Defaced then bassist Jörgen Löfberg used to play in The Defaced as well. Not to mention three fifths of the band (Christofer, Jörgen, and Peter) were in the now defunct Agretator. Whereas vocalist Andreas Sydow comes to the band fresh and unscathed as Darkane was his introduction into the world of death metal. Many associations and layers surround this complex band. Peeling back the stratum, the entire band sat down with me when they stopped in Chicago during their inaugural trip through the States on the Transgression Tour with Fear Factory, It Dies Today / Soilwork (later on), and Strapping Young Lad. Read on for the reveal.

Karma: Thanks a lot for doing the interview.

Christofer: Thank you.

Karma: Please introduce yourselves and tell our viewers what you do.

Christofer: My name is Christofer Malmström and I play the guitar in Darkane.

Andreas: My name is Andreas and I am the vocalist. [Smiles]

Klas: [Laughs] My name is Klas and I am the other guitarist.

Jörgen: And I am Jörgen, and I play the bass.

Karma: I first became acquainted with your music through Expanding Senses "Fatal Impact" and Klas/Jörgen through The Defaced as well. I am a fan and simply love your shit!

Christofer & Klas: Thank you!

Karma: So are you guys excited to be able to tour the States for the first time? What does it mean for you to be on the Transgression Tour?

Christofer: We’ve been waiting for a US tour for six years. Finally, a good opportunity came; this is like a dream package for us!

Klas: Yeah! [Smiles]

Christofer: We’re both fans of Fear Factory and Strapping Young Lad. We’ve grown up with Soilwork; they’re not on the tour right now but they will be. We are from the same town in Sweden [Helsingborg]. It couldn’t have been better for us; it’s been really great. [Smiles]

Klas: It’s a great package.

Karma: Speaking of your hometown how is the scene in Helsingborg? Is it supportive?

Klas: The scene? [Countenance deadpans] The scene, ha, it’s pretty much us and Soilwork...

Christofer: …and the Forsaken.

Klas: …oh yeah, they come from Karlskrona.

Christofer: …which is twenty miles from Helsingborg. Then there’s a band called the Sounds.

Karma: [Confusion crosses my countenance] Who? Never heard of them.

Christofer: Good! [We all laugh] Very good!

Karma: Well okay then! [Clears throat] Moving right along to the next question!

Christofer: [Smirks and the band laughs]

Karma: You guys are involved in a lot of side projects [again Klas Terror 2000 & Defaced, Christofer with Non-Human Level (featuring Ryan van Poederooyen of the Devin Townsend Band) on drums, Gustaf Hielm (ex-Meshuggah) on bass and Peter Wildoer (Darkane’s drummer on vocals)]. How does this impact Darkane since everyone has side projects?

Christofer: Not at all, because Darkane is our first priority, at least for me! [Laughs boisterously] I don’t know about Klas! He’s got Defaced…

Klas: [Laughs] Ehh…I play in Defaced as well but I mean…so far it’s been very smooth because Defaced has done stuff when Darkane hasn’t done stuff so… [Smiles]

Karma: Then Defaced is still together.

Klas: Yeah, we are. We’re gonna do the third album; I’m gonna do the vocals when I come back from this tour with a new vocalist actually. We’re gonna hopefully release it sometime soon…

Karma: You’re still in Terror 2000 as well, correct?

Klas: Yeah, you know the new album came out two weeks ago.

Karma: Awesome & congrats!

Klas: Thanks!

Karma: Suffice it to say, Darkane is your first priority as well.

Klas: [Smiles and nods head] Yes.

Karma: Christofer, I read that you said that Agretator ran out inspiration, do you foresee this ever happening with Darkane?

Christofer: [Serious expression crosses his face] Yes! [We all laugh] We said, “Hey let’s quit this damn band and start a success band this time!” so we did! Of course not! We had some luck because we had a record company that in Sweden called War Music. We tried to get Agretator signed to that label but they said it was too technical. We also thought it was too technical because we couldn’t write songs anymore. We had too high of… [turns to Andreas] standards?

Andreas: Yes, standards?

Christofer: So we wanted to start all over again, then this record company said, “If you want to do a new band, I’ll sign you directly”! So we said “Okay, let’s do”! We started a new band and wrote the first song “Convicted” and played it through the telephone for the record company and they said, “Yeah! We want to do that!!” So we had some luck there, things went very fast from the beginning with this band. Before this band, we had been working for like ten years in different bands to get something going. We had no luck then, but we worked very hard. [Voice drops]

Karma: Looks that all of your hard work has paid off too! Since we are on the subject of other bands (in a way) what’s the latest with Non-Human Level?

Christofer: I have just recently recorded the album; it will be released after the New Year here in the States. It’s a project; the plan so far was to do just one album and release it. And that’s what’s going to happen now. If it turns out that we get a good offer, we might tour as well, I don’t know. But that’s not the plan right now because we need another guitarist and the drummer lives in Vancouver, Canada. Do you know who he is?

Karma: Not off hand…

Klas: Ryan Van Poodeerhooveeen! [Laughs]

Karma: [Light bulb turns on] …from the Devin Townsend Band!

Christofer: [Smiles] Absolutely! And the bass player used to play in Meshuggah.

Karma: Gustaf Hielm.

Christofer: Ja! It’s a really cool project for me; [beams] but it’s meant to be a solo project so I don’t know what’s happening [past that].

Karma: Must be interesting almost coming full circle to be able to tour with Soilwork again since  you toured in the Netherlands with Naglfar & Soilwork in the past…mainly how you found Andreas in the first place. Do you think the band would have been the same providing Andreas would have been with you from the beginning on vocals?

Christofer: Probably not! [Laughs] We would have another singer [turns to look at Andreas] but Andreas fits the band very well. It would be very hard to find another vocalist that would fit his shoes. We are very happy with Andreas.

Andreas: [Beams]

Christofer: We did have another vocalist on the first album [Rusted Angel].

Karma: Lawrence [Mackrory].

Christofer: Yes Lawrence, but he wasn’t interested in continuing with the band. He asked us to find another singer, we found him in our hometown. [Voice drops while lamenting his homeland] Andreas wasn’t into death metal from the beginning and we started off as a death metal band. He found his vocal style with Darkane.

Klas: The only problem with him is he’s such a big fucking diva! [Laughter erupts]

Christofer: [Smiles while eyebrows go up] He’s a primadonna!

Andreas: [Shakes head while laughing] I’ve never heard this before! They’re talking about me like I’m not even here! [Hysterical laughter continues]

Karma: So now the truth comes out, huh?

Andreas: Yeah! [Laughs]

Christofer: You should hear the drummer…when he finished showering!

Peter: [Screams from the adjacent room] I can hear you guys! [Guffaws ensue]

Christofer: Ooh, oh!

Karma: Shhh!!

Peter: [Laughs]

Karma: How’s life with Nuclear Blast and if you could explain your affiliation with Relapse as well.

Christofer: Relapse? Oh, yeah!

Klas: The distribution is better; they are easy to work with, Nuclear Blast America compared to Relapse. Relapse is a very good company but they were kind of strange.

Christofer: We weren’t in contact with any of them because we had War Music release the album and they had Relapse distribute the album in the States. So we were never in contact with them at all. But now Nuclear Blast is releasing the album worldwide.

Karma: Okay, well in your opinion, do you believe your song writing changed since your early days of Rusted Angel?

Christofer: Not much, the big difference is Klas is joining us more and more. Rusted Angel was only [written] by me and Peter the drummer, whose showering! [Snickers] Then Klas contributed on this one…

Klas: Yeah, now with Layers of Lies, it’s kind of split between Peter, Christofer, and me with the songwriting.

Christofer: Yeah, with the songwriting.

Jörgen: At least each member has written one lyric.

Klas: Peter still does most of the lyrics.

Jörgen: Because we think it’s so boring! [Laughs] It’s more like we have to have lyrics, to keep them would be nice but if we didn’t…

Christofer: Then Andreas would be out of a job! [Room fills with laughter] No one wants to write them but when we record the album, and all of the guitars, the drums and bass are recorded and are done, it’s then time to start writing the lyrics. [Laughs]

Andreas: The ones that are missing…

Klas: It’s more like a party. We had a couple of lyrics before we started we had four?

Christofer: One!

Klas: One? Actually only Christofer had done one piece of lyrics.

Christofer: We were arranging, recording, and writing the vocals at the same time.

Andreas: Mostly.

Klas: We were trying to at least do the lyrics for the songs like let’s just say we were done with one song…

Andreas: Then we’d write the lyrics we don’t start to do another song until we had half the lyrics done to the other one.

Christofer: Now that’s for the next album! [Chuckles]

Klas: Yes, the next album. We don’t know if that’s going to happen, I can be buried by then!

Andreas: You should still aim for the stars!

Klas: Yeah.

Erika: So did you learn from your mistakes, is that what you mean?

Group: Yeah, yeah!

Christofer: We have come up with this idea, ‘Next time we should do it like this’, who knows!

Klas: The recording process for Layers of Lies was fun, but it was a lot of work because we had to do everything from scratch when it came to the lyrics and the vocal lines and all of that. It was a lot of work.

Andreas: Took a long time, it took a long time.

Karma: How long did it take?

Andreas: We all have regular day jobs so we have to do this on evenings and weekends, which was actually good for my voice because I could rest in between. That was not the case with Expanding Senses and Insanity we recorded everything…

Peter: [Enters the room] ...it was insanity! [Room fills with laughter]

Karma: Hi, Peter.

Peter: [Smiles] Hello.

Andreas: …it was both good and bad but it took a long time. I think we worked on the vocals for about two months.

Klas: Yeah two or two and a half months.

Karma: I can see how that would be hard, that is a long time!

Andreas: Yeah.

Christofer: But luckily, we had our own studio.

Andreas: That was good, but if you count the hours may be it’s not that much, since it was only evenings and weekends.

Christofer: Sometimes we’d take a whole week.

Andreas: Yeah, all pending on which session.

Karma: I would like to analyze the new album now. First, what is the story behind Layers, the title?

Christofer: Peter’s the story behind the title.

Peter: Behind Layers of Lies?

Karma: Yes.

Klas: Yes, tell her about your lyrics. [Smiles]

Peter: It’s inspired from the movie The Matrix. You take me seriously when I said this? [Uproarious laughter ensues] No but some of the lyrics on the whole record, a couple of the songs actually are… You know how in The Matrix if you take the blue pill, you see reality and if you take the red pill you will go back to your fictionary reality?

Karma: So you are serious about it being inspired by The Matrix then?

Peter: Oh yeah! [Smiles] No, I’m serious about this, this time, [Laughs] I think that theme is kind of interesting, we don’t know if we’re actually here doing this interview or not. It might be fiction or some computerized reality, who knows. We could be laying in some cocoon somewhere else like in the real life. You’ll never know if that is reality like in the movie for example when Neo wakes up. You don’t know if that’s the true reality or if it’s just another level.

Andreas: That was actually the third line of the first verse in the lyrics that he wrote.

Peter: Yeah, yeah. We just like that word!

Klas: We like the lies…

Jörgen: …the sound of it… [Laughs]

Klas: It’s kind of good because there’s so much lies in life circling around in the world anyway so…it’s a good title.

Peter: And in the music business too!

Group: Fuck yeah!

Peter: That can get worked into a lot of different ways.

Karma: Very true! Please tell the audience something they may not have known about the production of Layers of Lies?

Klas: [Laughter fills the room] Well, we went through hell for five and half months.

Christofer: And came back!

Andreas: Absolutely!

Klas: We learned a LOT from this album!

Peter: We did definitely!! It was a hard time.

Klas: But it was a fun time as well.

Peter: You know when you’re pushing each other…also when you have an outside producer, it’s much easier to take his words and work with that but… We’re friends and if some one of us tries to do this and tries to do that. When you’re friends, it’s much harder to take that seriously but I thought that would be the biggest problem but that was really cool. We all got along with each other and respected the different [ideas] we had. Actually it was the first album that we virtually had the same thoughts about everything, the production, the songs and everything. [Band acquiesces by nodding simultaneously]

Klas: Yeah!

Jörgen: There were no fistfights, right?!

Peter: No, there were no fistfights at all!

Jörgen: Not this time around! [Laughter ensues]

Karma: Well that’s good…

Jörgen: That’s nice, right?

Karma: That’s always nice, shows you guys have learned to work together as well.

Group: Yeah, we have.

Karma: Which song is your favourite off the album?

Christofer: [Without any hesitation] “Maelström Crisis”!

Karma: Hmmm…I wonder why that is! [We all laugh]

Andreas: Pffft…it’s so hard on this album to say a favorite song…it might be “Godforsaken Universe”. It’s a cool song!

Christofer: I have to agree with Andreas.

Klas: The vocals are great on that one.

Karma: Are you changing your song now?

Christofer: [Smiles] No.

Klas: [Turns to Peter] I know which one is your favorite.

Peter: [Surprise replaces his previous expression] Really? Do tell… [Laughs]

Klas: It’s “Organic Canvas”.

Peter: [Nods head]

Klas: For me it’s probably “Godforsaken Universe” or…

Peter: “Secondary Effects”.

Klas: Yeah, “Secondary Effects”.

Karma: Jörgen?

Jörgen: Ja…right!

Klas: He doesn’t know the names of the songs! [Laughter erupts]

Jörgen: Actually, I will go with “Layers of Lies”.

Christofer: I will say the intro [“Amnesia of the Wildoerian Apocalypse”] as well.

Karma: It is very nice and sets the stage for “Secondary Effect” very well.

Christofer: Thanks, we put a lot of work and time into it. It was real nice for us to have real strings and the choir and stuff. It was total movie music so it was cool to have something like that.

Karma: Will you ever release "Subliminal Seduction" to the masses at some point in time considering it is currently only available on the Japanese release?

Group: We don’t know.

Peter: We actually have a lot of stuff that’s laying around that could either be released in the US or in Europe from the last album. Some cover songs, one we did of Slayer a mix of “Ghosts of War” and “Raining Blood”.

Karma: Oh wow! That sounds cool!

Peter: Yeah, but we were never allowed to release that. It was during the Insanity sessions.

Jörgen: We were going to record a song called, “All Your Weight Lars”. [Chuckles]

Peter: It’s a Swedish Traditional song!

Klas: But all with blast beats and horns! [Hysterical laughter ensues]

Peter: Well, who knows when [the songs will be released]. But it would be nice to release the song; then again, we could do it on the internet when it’s time for it. Maybe next year or something like that, we could always do an EP in the future of all of the unreleased stuff.

Christofer: We don’t want the Japanese bonus track to stay in Japan. It’s okay if they release it there first.

Jörgen: Why should not the rest of the world be able to hear it?

Klas: True.

Karma: That’s true!

Peter: The thing is that the American CD’s are cheaper than the Japanese ones in Japan, that’s why they need the bonus tracks to be able to sell the Japanese versions, actually.

Karma: Makes sense, it sheds a whole new light on that situation.

Peter: yeah, a lot of people don’t know that.

Karma: Thanks for sharing that bit of info!

Peter: Sure.

Karma: Since three of the song titles creatively incorporate your names, how was this concept spawned?

Christofer: What do you name an instrumental when you have no lyrics to reflect it? The first thing we came up with was the intro with the choir. We didn’t know if we were going to use Latin, Swedish or English. It didn’t sound good so we made up some words; we came up with our own language. Peter came up with most of the words so we called the language Wildoerian. The rest of the title is just a black metal joke or something.

Peter: It’s not serious at all. My first idea was to do something like title…

Christofer: And then I thought why should he be the only one with his name in the title? [We all laugh] And then I thought, well what about my name, it could be done in that way too so I did “Maelstrom [Crisis]”, then Klas wrote the song, “Klastrophobic Hibernation”. In Swedish, Klas’ last name…

Klas & Peter: Ideberg.

Christofer: His name “Ide” is hibernation. His name is actually hibernation mountain.

Karma: Really!

Christofer: Yeah, but we can’t be totally serious so we had to make a joke about our songs. When Jörgen and Andreas write their own instrumentals… [Hysterics follow as band proceeds to chide Jörgen and Andreas]

Peter: Darkane’s like…when you meet us like this, you learn stuff like that, and that’s what probably translates into the titles too. We also think that with the layout and stuff like that is very important to maybe not do that as humorous. It’s kind of a play [on words] but we like to play too.

Karma: Speaking of the layout, I have a series of questions about that a couple of questions down the road.

Peter: I don’t even want to talk about that anymore! [Smiles]

Karma: You don’t?

Peter: Okay, I’ll just wait for your question. [Laughs]

Karma: Your lyrics seemingly so are candid portrayals of your lives, do you think lyric writing can make or break a band?

Christofer: Not in metal!

Andreas: No, I doubt it in metal.

Peter: Not in metal, but Bob Dylan for example, and some other guys, Bruce Springsteen or whatever. They write great lyrics that have an impact and not that much of the songs probably, yet the songs are well known of course. They are great songwriters. In metal, I don’t think it’s that important.

Jörgen: Fuck yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck yeah! [Plays air guitar, laughter ensues]

Christofer: [Eyes widen] Are you allowed to write that?

Karma: Yes! We’ve all had our fair share of expletives tonight! [We all laugh]

Klas: Lyrics are important yes but to the metal people, it’s not that important.

Jörgen: I think it’s more important for the English people. [Band agrees] To the rest of the world it’s just like a third instrument.

Karma: Hmmm…that’s a very interesting take on it.

Peter: You have those kids today that are scarring things with razorblades, whatever, those people probably take it more seriously than the ones who wrote it, you know. They try to find whatever evil they want or whatever they want in the lyrics. It’s not like write a book…probably Steven King is not as evil as his looks are.

Christofer: I saw a commercial about a life saving course, so I wrote the lyrics to “Final Impact”. Then I got a letter from a girl that said, “That’s exactly how I feel when I read your lyrics, like they were written to me directly” I went okay, that’s cool; I’m very happy but I really didn’t give it that much thought. I mean it’s strange…

Karma: Then how does that make you feel?

Christofer: I think it’s cool, I think it’s great I just hope I don’t influence these people in a bad way.

Karma: Fair enough. Which song was the hardest to write and why?

Group: All of them!

Peter: Actually working wise for the lyrics and stuff, which was definitely “Organic Canvas”. It was a hard song to do lyrics to, especially in the verse and stuff like that. It was kind of intricate riff you know and it’s very hard to do vocals.

Andreas: Hmm, hmm.

Peter: That was a really hard song to work with the vocals. The chorus came out very well but we had to work with the verses. When we write songs, they just kind come along the way. It’s not that we get stuck and we just continue to work with it. We may do another song, whatever.

Christofer: “Decadent Messiah” was probably the one song that we hesitated the most on.

Peter: Yeah, definitely!

Christofer: We had another version of it before we changed it and got the final version.

Peter: It’s most often easier to do the first song…

Christopher: …yeah, the last eight or nine songs is always the worst songs on the album. [Laughs]

Peter: But they didn’t turn out to be the worst ones on the album.

Andreas: That’s one of the reasons why we want to, as I mentioned before when we do one song, we write the lyrics then place the vocal lines and all that and then when we’re done with that, we do another song.

Karma: Realizing I am reaching back a bit, but how was it working with Daniel Bergstrand?

Group: Good. It was good.

Christofer: We learned a lot from him for three albums and then we moved away from that.

Karma: To working on your own. Do you think you will use an outside producer going forward?

Jörgen: I don’t know, Devin’s on this tour! [Laughs]

Karma: You have a point there! Now that would be pretty awesome!

Christofer: I guess one more album we will do by ourselves and then we can have somebody from the outside to have their opinion. Because we wrote the songs, we can’t hear them with other’s ears other than ourselves. We probably hear the songs another way than listeners because we know what we were thinking when we wrote it.

Peter: We actually never changed much with the songs from before, like when we worked with Daniel. Daniel mostly worked with the vocal arrangements and stuff like that. The songs that we changed or whatever we did with the songs, we already wrote the songs. We just record the rest; the only thing that he was actually more involved in production wise, producing was actually the vocals.

Klas: And the drums.

Peter: [Smiles] And the drums, more of the sound. Since we’ve worked with him three times you kind of know what to do now.

Andreas: It was a good school, for me.

Klas: He really helped with “Innocence Gone” for example. He did a lot of producing and changing…

Peter: …when the chorus comes and stuff like that. But that was the only song that we had a change like that. We always usually kept the versions that we had before that. But he’s a real good guy, he's very good.

Andreas: He doesn’t shower that much…but he’s a great guy! [Guffaws ensue]

Christofer: It’s true though, unlike Peter!

Karma: The CD has an immensely, psychotic overtone one could say. [Band laughs] Ranging from the layout to the artwork how was the layout decided? Starting the lyrics with track #5 "Layers of Lies" and ending on the back with #6 "Godforsaken Universe". Why not start the CD off this way or was it to further go along with the psychoticism?

Peter: It wasn’t actually our idea, it was the guy who did the layout [Fredrik Ödman of Workshop Art] for the booklet. He read all of the lyrics and he didn’t know which song was number five or one or whatever. He got all of the lyrics and put them in a way he thought they would make a good story from beginning to end. He made a concept out of it because it made sense when you read the booklet through that it would make a story. Christofer said Mötley Crüe did that on Shout At The Devil so…

Christofer: Theatre of Pain.

Peter: Theatre of Pain, it wasn't their best album but it was a successful album, better than any Darkane album ever did.

Christofer: We can get as much girls as they can if we do that! [We all laugh]

Peter: And now we have! Put your songs in the wrong order and you will get all of the girls!

Karma: The cover features a figure, which projectile emanations are suspended in a weightless atmosphere. Who came up with this concept or was Fredrik given license to do as he wished based upon the lyrics?

Peter: He already did it before; we saw that photo and thought it would be a cool cover for us. It was already done before he ever got in touch with us.

Christofer: We had to work with him a lot to convince him to let us buy the work for us because he wasn’t enthused doing metal. He’s more of a gallery kind of guy.

Klas: A real artist, he’s real strange but a nice guy.

Peter: Now he’s done the covers for Clawfinger and another band too!

Klas: [Laughs] Yeah, I saw the cover a couple of days ago.

Christofer: I guess when you realize you can earn some money…

Karma: Exactly!

Peter: The cover that he did for us, he called that “The Creation” and we have a song called “The Creation Insane”. I guess it was meant to be kind of I guess. He said that “The Creation” came from this guy, that stream of water coming out of his mouth and then there is a… [Amazement captures the countenances of the band]

Klas: Sink.